The Mundane Life of (Human) Thomas and his (Equally Human) Friends
by trainlife
Summary: A series of one-shots pertaining to the often mundane life of a young railway worker and his eccentric band of friends. Human AU.
1. Seasonal Office Traditions

A/N Yes, this is a Christmas chapter. In August. Ah well, hopefully the humour holds up~

* * *

It was Christmastime on the Island of Sodor, and the North Western Railway's drivers were full of festive cheer for the holidays. Actually, that's a lie – really, they were full of trepidation, for today was the day of the dreaded annual Secret Santa draw.

The drivers of the NWR's core fleet filed into the hastily-decorated office-cum-secret grotto, each one trickling in every few minutes or so. Edward had arrived early to finish decorating along with newcomer Rebecca. Rebecca, being an especially exuberant young woman, had been babbling endlessly about how sweet the custom of Secret Santa was. Edward was torn between humouring her and shattering the illusion; their colleagues were not only (almost) all arseholes, but generally apathetic and thus notorious for mediocre gifts.

As each person arrived, they deposited their (lazily) wrapped presents into a large sack (read: bin bag) so that a shred of anonymity may be preserved. It was clear that the bag wasn't entirely full; Oliver had, to the envy of his colleagues, gone on holiday for the week, and was thus exempt from the year's festivities. Donald and Douglas were similarly absent – presumed at a pub – although their gift had already been deposited in the bag earlier that day via Duck.

"Alright, let's get this over with, then." Gordon broke the silence. The fluorescent lights' reflection off the gaudy fake snow was giving him a headache already.

Edward dutifully reached into the bag and retracted a hastily-wrapped item. So hastily-wrapped, that it was indeed wrapped in that morning's newspaper,

"Uh, Henry, this is for you." He read the scrawled handwriting off the package, and handed it to the taller man.

Henry surveyed the gift tentatively for a moment, as if it were a sloppily-wrapped grenade. With a sigh, he peeled the newspaper off to reveal…a mug. An air of relief reigned for a brief moment as Henry raised an eyebrow at the seemingly-decent gift; by comparison, the previous year he had received a single lettuce,

"Well, this is nice- _oh_." His eyes met the green sans serif font printed on the side of the mug that read '_HNERY'_, "Really, lads? My name is phonetic! How on earth did you get it wrong?" He stared accusingly at his gathered colleagues. Percy shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, at least it's, uh, practical?" Nia asked hopefully. Truth be told, she had been warned about the British tradition of Secret Santa, and awaited her turn with dread.

"Next one's for you, Gordon." Edward announced, handing the (admittedly tastefully wrapped) item to the express driver as if it were burning his hand.

Gordon wore a sneer on his face as he gently peeled back the Sellotape, delaying the inevitable. At last, he caught sight of a yellow object, and upon extracting it from its bindings he swore, "Oh, for f-"

"-What is it?" James asked impatiently, before bursting into a cackle at the site of the Minion stress ball. Thomas and Percy hooted with laughter as well, no doubt the result of their plan being executed to perfection.

"Well, you do get a bit tense sometimes." Toby intoned quietly.

"_Yes, I am aware, Toby_." Gordon demonstrated perfectly through gritted teeth. You see, dear reader, the reason Gordon was so shaken by the sight of a Minion was a result of the younger crew members' wonderful game of taping 'motivational' Minion memes to the tall man's beloved express engine. Slogans such as _'You're one in a Minion_' constantly plagued his peripheral vision for months before the Fat Controller had mercifully put an end to it. What Gordon was painfully aware of, however, was his _beloved_ brother Scott's insistence in sending him Minion-themed greetings cards as a result of word getting out.

"Right, who's next?" Asked Emily, seeing that Gordon was squeezing the stress ball with enough pressure to almost pop the thing's little yellow head off.

"You, actually." Edward replied, handing her her gift.

"Thank you kindly." Emily said. She didn't mean it. She opened the peculiarly flat present, vainly hoping it was a gift card or book token or _something_ normal. As was often the case on this railway, she placed too much faith in her colleagues, "What the- James?! Why the _hell_ do I have a signed photo of you?!" She shoved the photo in James' face accusingly.

Everyone looked towards the redhead, who gaped like a fish, "I-I didn't do it, honest! Well, not _this_ time. But the point is, it would appear that EDWARD has regifted my gift to him from last year!" he glared at the older man, who put his hands up in a placating gesture.

"I merely thought it would be better with Emily."

"Edward! How could you misjudge me this badly?" Emily asked, pained. She held the photo of her colleague between two fingers, as if the winking redhead in the image would give her a disease.

"Oi!" Came James' reply.

Thomas and Percy were in fits of laughter. Rebecca nudged Nia, expressing her amazement that, _yes_, James was really THAT narcissistic.

As James continued to argue with Edward and Emily, Toby tactfully darted for the bag of presents and read out the next one, "Duck, you're up."

Duck, a man known for his distinct limp, waddled up to the brown-clad man and gratefully took his present. Unwrapping it, he discovered that it was old railway memorabilia. A keen collector of such things relating to the Great Western Railway, he eagerly tore away at the wrapping, clearly forgetting just who his colleagues were. To his utter horror, the memorabilia – which included postcards and novelty coins – was all from the LNER!

"WHAT!" His yell of discomfit was enough to silence the arguing trio, who all turned to gaze at him. He sat down at the flimsy table in a sulk, discarded memorabilia scattered about the table in full view of everyone else, who promptly began to cackle obnoxiously at the short man's expense.

"Whoever did that, you're a bloody genius." James wiped a tear from his eye, seemingly forgetting his previous argument.

"Nia, you're next." Edward chuckled as the laughter died down.

"May the odds ever be in your favour." Thomas ominously uttered, rendering Nia slightly disquieted as she began to open her present. It was a tape measure. One of those cheap, flimsy tape measures from a Christmas cracker.

"Honestly, lads, this is the poor girl's first Christmas in the UK and you treat her to _this_? Shameful." Emily shook her head.

"No, no, Emily, it's fine. I, uh, needed to do some DIY in my flat anyway…?" Nia shifted uneasily.

Henry called her bluff, "Nice try, Nia. But you honestly don't have to accept the gift this graciously. It's crap. All these gifts are crap. And we aren't afraid to voice this fact."

The others agreed plaintively, but the mood soon dropped by a few degrees upon James opening his gift.

"Unicorn BLOODY bootlaces?! I swear I will actually use these things to strangle whoever got me them." He seethed, going red in the face.

"I mean really," began Gordon, "we should be gifting these to the gentleman who so kindly lent James his laces in the first place..."

James gave an inhuman shriek, and it was only with Henry's intervention that he wasn't able to carry out his threat on Gordon. There were mutters amongst the rest of the group regarding who actually committed the act of buying this gift for James, but no one wanted to face the ire of an angry Scouser.

"Let's get through the rest of these quickly before anyone can get hurt." Edward hurriedly retrieved another gift from the bag, "Rebecca!"

"Ooh, yay!" she cheered. Clearly, everyone else's festive spirit was being channelled by the blonde alone.

Her present was also suspiciously flat, and the others collectively held their breath and prayed that James hadn't been so crass as to gift someone else a photo of himself again. Mercifully, they were wrong. Unfortunately the gift turned out to be a very belated welcome card to Rebecca.

"Um, thanks guys! I, um, really appreciate it!" She smiled uneasily, holiday spirit dampened slightly.

"Oh come on, this is ridiculous now. I thought the card had been given to her three months ago!" Duck exclaimed, "Shame on whoever forgot to give it to her."

"Again, it's fine, Duck. I love it. What better time to truly feel like one of the family than at Christmastime?" Rebecca beamed. The others smiled uneasily back at her. It had been an exceedingly cheap card, too.

"Oh, it's my turn!" Edward grimaced as his retracted his arm from the bag. The others waited in bated breath as the bearer of all their terrible gifts opened his own equally terrible gift, which in this case turned out to be a tea-towel with the words 'TEAM MUM!" in cursive pink lettering. Edward pursed his lips at the snickers that followed, "Well, this is lovely."

Thomas sidled up to him and whispered, "Okay, not to spoil the surprise, but I need to explain it to you. Basically, I wanted to get you something in recognition of you being the collective Group Dad™," at this Thomas actually voiced the trademark, "but unfortunately Poundland was out of TEAM DAD ones so I had to go with the next best thing."

Edward turned to face Thomas, and was equal parts flattered and put-out by the explanation, "Well, that's very, _economical_, of you, Thomas. Anyway, the next present is yours."

Thomas accepted the proffered gift with a frown, and returned to his position beside Percy.

"Oh, you're kidding me! Again?" Thomas pulled a can of Lynx Africa from the wrapping paper, groaning. The others snorted. You see, Thomas had received Lynx Africa in some form or other every single Secret Santa for the past few years. It was practically tradition. A Basic-White-Guy-smelling tradition.

"Does Lynx Africa actually smell of Africa, Nia?" Percy asked innocently.

Nia snorted, "Africa is an entire continent, Percy. Tell me, could you describe the smell of Europe to me?"

"No?"

"I feel like I'm losing brain cells from this conversation." Gordon massaged his temples.

"Percy, you're up." Edward sighed, handing the young lad a package. Well, technically an envelope

"He's been working here for over a year now and bothering us for longer than that. Why on earth would he need a welcome card?" Gordon snorted, eyeing the envelope disdainfully.

"Because you all love me dearly and decided to show your appreciation via greeting card?" Percy asked, only half joking. He opened the envelope cautiously, trying not to tear whatever was inside.

What was inside, however, probably would've been less upsetting had it been accidentally torn.

"A…ticket from Tidmouth to Barrow? A _one way_ ticket from Tidmouth to Barrow?" Percy's lip quivered slightly, "You lot trying to get rid of me or something?"

James inhaled through his teeth, "Bit harsh, whoever got that. Wish I'd thought of it myself."

Emily elbowed him.

"I mean…we could technically report this to the Fat Controller for bullying." Edward took note of the rapidly tearful look that Percy was adopting.

"And calling your managing director fat _isn't_ bullying?" Toby pointed out.

"Touché."

"Percy, mate." Thomas inclined his head sympathetically to his best friend, "Whoever did it is probably skint and couldn't afford anything else."

"It's even bought with the employee discount, you cheapskates!" Percy exclaimed, glaring at every single person in the room. Some of them took a step back lest the short youth physically attack them.

"…Moving on." Edward resumed the order of the day; he was beginning to question the culture of morality of a staff who all called their boss fat behind his back. "Toby's the final recipient of the day. Thank God." He muttered.

Toby wished Henrietta was present; she constituted a good seventy percent of his backbone in public situations.

"What on earth…?" he lifted a curiously label-less bottle from the wrapping – a cursory glance revealed it to be a former Lucozade bottle – and held it up to the light to analyse the insipid brown colour of the contents.

"Is that-?" Duck didn't get to finish, as he was cut off by Toby devolving into a coughing fit. He had bravely opened the bottle and took a sniff of its contents.

"Cor, I can smell it from here!" Thomas covered his mouth with his blue sleeve.

"Good grief, is that paint thinner in there?" Edward coughed.

"It would appear to be some form of home-brewed alcohol. Whisky at a guess. I think." Toby had recovered from his own coughing fit, but he remained red-faced.

"Who is making _moonshine_ of all things in their spare time?" Henry asked incredulously. He was getting ideas.

"I could think of a pair…" Duck muttered to himself. Said pair were suspiciously absent.

"What a way to end this hell we've had to endure for the past hour." Gordon stated dourly, picking up his coat in preparation to leave.

"Rather fitting, really." Henry agreed, picking up his own belongings. He carefully wrapped his new mug up in his scarf; in hindsight, his gift was by far one of the most innocuous.

"Wow, I suddenly feel less bad about the gift I got my recipient." James sighed, making for the door, "Later losers."

"Another year done. At least nobody vomited this year." Edward shook his head, collecting up the various wrapping paper detritus and putting it in the now-empty bin bag.

Rebecca's eyes bulged and she paused momentarily as she walked past the team's senior member.

Edward saw this and gave a rather laboured laugh, "Oh, someone bought Thomas surstromming. You know, that ungodly smelling fermented fish? We couldn't use this room for about three months afterwards. But that's in the past!" he added hastily at the peculiar shade of white her face was taking on.

"I'm glad! Hopefully next year'll be better. Merry Christmas, Edward!" she beamed at him, before leaving.

Alone in the room, Edward grunted, "Ever the optimist." Bin bag in tow, he collected his belongings (tea-towel included) and made for the door. Turning off the Christmas lights with a sigh, he too set off home.

* * *

"Thanks Ducky!" Donald called after the shorter man as he left the pub, having dropped off the twins' Secret Santa present.

"Well, open it, Donnie!" Douglas goaded, "If we're lucky it'll be one-way tickets to the mainland."

"Hold yer horses!" The several-pints-deep Donald fumbled with the envelope. He extracted its contents with an incredibly bemused look on his face.

"What is it?"

Donald, for once, had no words to reply to his brother. Looking round to make sure no other patrons were looking, he slid the offending present over to his brother.

"Is that-?" Douglas gaped, for the picture in question gave him flashbacks to the previous year's Secret Santa.

It was a signed photograph. Of James.

"I'm starting to wish I hadnae given away our moonshine."


	2. Thomas' New(ish) Car

**Thomas' New(ish) Car**

It had become the new talking point whenever Thomas entered the NWR's staffroom.

Ever since he had passed his driving test (admittedly after the fifth attempt) Thomas had made sure that word had spread to even the furthest recesses of the railway that he was to inherit a new car from an uncle back in Brighton. Daisy had heard it was to be a vintage Porsche, while Molly and Whiff had heard it was an exclusive prototype courtesy of Elon Musk. Regardless, it had become something of a guessing game amongst the rest of the staff as to exactly what their young colleague would end up with.

It was a chilly October morning when Thomas burst into the staffroom with the exuberance of a man who had struck gold.

"Today's the day!" he declared, placing a boot upon the coffee table in a pose he thought would emphasise the importance of his words.

Looking up from his newspaper in dismay, Edward ventured forth, "For what, Thomas?"

"Are you finally getting a job elsewhere?" James joked, watching with mirth as a flustered Gordon shooed Thomas' oily boot off the stack of fresh newspapers.

Thomas laughed humourlessly, "No, but…" he paused for dramatic effect (it didn't work), "Today's the day I'm getting my car!"

Percy, still navigating the basics of road theory, stared at his best friend in awe, "Nice! Can I get lifts to work?"  
"Of course! Anyone who wants to can!"

Gordon groaned, folding his own newspaper, "Nobody in their right mind would hitch a lift with you every day in whatever health hazard of a car you end up with. How many times did it take for you to pass your test?"

"_Five_." Thomas muttered quietly.

"What was that?"

"I believe he said five, Gordon." Henry helpfully supplied, smirking. Thomas bared his teeth at him.

"You guys are just jealous of the car I'm gonna get this afternoon. My uncle assured me it's gonna be a great little car."

"…"

"You mean you've not seen it in person?" Douglas asked, concerned.

"That's like rule number one of getting a car, mate." Emily turned to Thomas lazily.

"…Technically no," Thomas shifted uneasily, "but my uncle's a right lad. I'm sure it's something cool. It's the same shade of blue as Number One anyway."

He was met with no response.

Thomas looked around the room at the raised eyebrows, before snorting, "Fine, don't expect any favours off me in future. I'll just leave you all to James' driving instead."

"Hey!" came an indignant squawk as Thomas stomped out of the staffroom to tend to engine #1.

* * *

Thomas was anxious. Truly. He'd let his mouth get ahead of him yet again; his uncle, cool or not, certainly wasn't going to give him his old Jaguar for the paltry sum of £250. Or even his cousin's beaten up old Fiat. The lack of photos from his uncle was also unsettling; the front-on photo had revealed little other than the brand and colour.

Thomas' frown deepened.

Percy, faithful as ever, had trotted out of the staffroom to join Thomas in prepping #1 for its next job, "Thomas, are you okay? You seemed kinda touchy in there."

"I am absolutely fine. Absolutely fine, except for the fact that the reality has suddenly hit me that I've been bigging myself up too much lately."

"What do you mean?" Percy inquired as Thomas changed the head code.

"I mean," he replied tersely, "my uncle isn't exactly getting me Porsche or a Mercedes, is he? And I've been going on about this car for weeks now, so they'll all be expecting something big. I'll be a bloody laughing stock."

Percy politely declined to inform Thomas that he was already a laughing stock.

"Just…promise me you won't take the piss when you see what I get?" Thomas pleaded.

Percy hesitated, "Uh, sure? Although I don't see what the problem is."

Thomas sighed.

* * *

"Is the bumper patched up with cardboard?" Percy asked incredulously.

Thomas sighed, "Yes, I believe it is, Percy. Any other insightful questions before you hop in and I drive us towards my inevitable embarrassment? Any other comments you want to make about my new ride?"

The pair stood before Thomas' 'new' – and new in the loosest possible sense of the word – car. It was a W-reg Suzuki Wagon, whose boxiness rivalled Toby's old tram. Its sky blue paint was obviously the third or fourth coat, and had been hastily applied in order to cover up the patch job to fix the bumper.

"Yes – why does it smell so musty?"

"I'd really rather not think about that. Now get in."

* * *

Pulling onto Crosby High Street, Thomas felt his grip tighten on the worn steering wheel as they immediately entered traffic. They inched forward slowly but surely towards the traffic lights that were working overtime to cope with the morning rush hour traffic heading for Knapford and Tidmouth. The car's radio was playing a crackly rendition of Ob La Di, Ob La Da by the Beatles, and Percy's mouthing along of the words was adding to Thomas' slowly fraying temper.

Unfortunately, the situation was exacerbated as a familiar red car drew out from an adjacent street to join the High Street traffic.

"Oh bugger, it's James!" Thomas exclaimed, ducking as low behind the steering wheel as he could.

"W-what? Where?" Percy whipped his head around to try and locate their colleague.

Thomas drew closer to the traffic lights before pulling his friend down below the dashboard, "Don't! He'll see you, you idiot!"

It was too late. James' car was immediately behind Thomas', and judging by the literal tears of laughter forming in his eyes, it was clear that James was also aware of this. As Thomas counted down the seconds until the traffic light turned green – the longest thirty-five seconds of his life – he was rather glad that James wasn't asthmatic, otherwise the amount of wheezing going on in the car behind him would have been rather concerning. Clearly someone was enjoying the situation a lot more than Thomas.

* * *

As if Thomas' day couldn't get any worse, he entered the staffroom to find that James had not only arrived before him, but that he had spread the news of the new car to his colleagues, who were all exhibiting various forms of mirth.

"How on earth did he get here before us? He was behind us in traffic!" Thomas sulked to Percy.

"Maybe it's because you spent eight minutes trying to park straight?" Percy suggested.

This answer did not appease Thomas in the slightest, and he stomped over to the kettle for a cup of strong coffee.

"Oh Thomas, you're here!" Rebecca giggled, "Can we see your car now?"

"No, you can't."

"Why not?" Gordon asked, "Too embarrassed to show it to us?"

"No!"

"Well considering James is red in the face and barely able to get a coherent sentence out without laughing…"

"James can never get a coherent sentence out anyway." Thomas snorted, turning around to face the others with a cup of strong coffee in his hand.

A wheezed "I resent that!" emanated from their redheaded friend.

"Lads. I have located the car." Henry popped his head into the doorway and beckoned everyone out towards the car park.

"No! Wait!" Thomas choked on his coffee, haphazardly slamming it down on the table before running out in pursuit of his colleagues.

Upon entering the car park, he scanned the horizon for the rest of the group. They were mere feet away from his car by now.

He could hear Gordon's guffawing before he saw him crease up completely. The others all sniggered as Thomas pushed through them.

"Did you borrow paint from the Works or something? That shade of blue is too specific to be coincidence, laddie." Donald wiped a tear of mirth from his eye.

"No! It came like that!"

"Bollocks did it come like that." Henry (who was actually asthmatic) wheezed.

"I swear my grandmother had that exact same car circa 2003." Duck noted. "Similar reg too."

"Piss off Duck." Thomas glared, "It was only £250, which is pretty good value if you think about it!"

"Well, you'll certainly break even when someone puts this on You've Been Framed." Emily laughed.

James, having barely recovered from his earlier laughing fit, devolved into cackles again.

Thomas frowned, which devolved into an all-out sulk when he noted Percy barely concealing his chuckling.

"Traitor." Thomas muttered under his breath.

* * *

Several weeks passed, and although discussion of Thomas' car had died down a bit, he occasionally still faced the odd jab from his colleagues.

Conditions were getting icier on Sodor as winter was approaching, and the less-than-stellar transport department of Sodor County Council was struggling to keep up with demand for pothole repairs.

As Gordon trundled down a rural road near Crosby in his 2010 Audi, his car's axles were certainly feeling the strain.

"Could you try avoiding those ruddy potholes or something? My flask is going to start leaking." Henry groaned.

"I tell you this every winter: this is a single track road so I cannot avoid them. Besides, the bloody things have been getting worse by the year. One of these days it's going to do some damage-" Gordon was cut off by the sound of his car hitting a particularly large pothole and snapping part of its axle in the process.

Both of the car's occupants sat in silence for a minute.

"Bugger."

* * *

Unbeknownst to them, Thomas was cruising down the same road with Percy in the passenger seat. In the dull winter morning light, he noticed the flashing of hazard lights up ahead.

"Damn, we ain't getting past a blockage on this road." He huffed, slowing to a stop. As they neared the car in front, however, they noticed it looked rather familiar – as did the two men stood next to it, arms akimbo.

"Is that-?" Percy started, as Thomas almost fell out of his car laughing.

"You lads need some help?" Thomas called.

"Oh, hell. It's them." Gordon muttered, "No, we are absolutely fine!"

"You sure about that?" Thomas prodded.

"…"

"The front axle has been severely damaged." Henry summarised, tutting, "The AA say they can be here within the hour, but won't be able to fix it here."

"So how will you get to work?" Percy asked.

Gordon remained silent.

"Weeeell, there's always my car." Thomas offered smugly.

Gordon glared at him.

Henry was cold and had had enough, "Right, let's get Gordon's car out of the middle of the road, and get Thomas to take us the rest of the way once the AA have arrived."

Gordon huffed. Thomas' face split into a sadistic grin.

* * *

As Thomas' Suzuki pulled into the car park, James was walking by to retrieve his jacket from his own car. He did a double-take upon catching sight of the Suzuki's other occupants.

Gordon exited the car with as much dignity as he could muster, dusting himself off and straightening his suit. Upon seeing James' wide-eyed gape, he snarled, "What the hell are you looking at?"

"You enjoy the trip in Thomas' car, Gordon?" he inquired, shock turning into a grin.

"No comment."

"Thanks for that, Thomas." Henry too exited the car, before walking over to James, "Morning."

"What happened?" James asked, genuinely curious.

"A pothole caused the demise of Gordon's car this morning. Thomas was unfortunately our knight in shining blue armour."

The pair turned to watch Gordon stalk off towards the staffroom, before turning back towards Thomas and Percy.

Thomas grinned.


End file.
